Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Odds and ends

There’s either nothing happening, so I don’t have anything to write about, or there’s too much happening and no time to write about it. I think it’s mostly the latter.

Worked with a great bunch of Terv folks over the weekend to put on the second annual ABTC national specialty fundraiser agility trial in Davenport, Iowa. There were about six of us on the trial committee but thanks to dozens of wonderful, generous, awesome, hard-working volunteers from area clubs, the event went smoothly. We couldn’t have done it without them and very much appreciate their help.

Hit a deer on the way to the trial Saturday morning but no damage to R2. Fortunately (for me) someone else hit the deer first and it had checked out on the fast lane of I-80. My friend Marsha who was driving ahead of me missed the first large pile of body parts. I did, too, more or less, but when Marsha swerved to miss the rest of the deer, her van's tires kicked up a spray of semi-liquified critter in the best Hollywood gore style. While trying to avoid the oncoming splatter, I managed to whack the remaining remains on the road. As a friend of mine says, it wasn’t purty.

I went to the car wash at the first chance but my options were limited to Basic, Deluxe, Premium and The Works. They did not have a Remove Deer Splatter option. I should have gone for The Works since Basic was not up to the task. I finally took a bucket of water and a towel out to the garage the other night and scrubbed most of it off. Phoenix helped.

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This is the time of year I realize that I’ve got about 6 weeks to take pictures of the dogs for a Christmas card, get the card designed, ordered, printed, addressed and mailed out in a timely fashion, so as not to offend the Holiday Police and be sending Christmas cards some time in February of 2013.

Every year, I swear I’m going to take that picture on a pleasant summer evening when my flowers are blooming and hummingbirds are darting around the patio. The reality is usually that I end up taking it in mid-November when it’s about 34 degrees outside and we’re fighting the light and the dogs are disgusted with the whole process.

This year, I may have lit on the perfect solution: take many, many pictures throughout the year so I have a large library to choose from, thus reducing the stress of taking The Perfect Christmas Card Picture at the last minute.

So far, so good. Now I just have to sort through about 472 shots of the Belgians. Yep. Sure made that job easier.

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Phoenix and I are showing in UKC Utility for the first time this weekend. It’s a local trial, in a familiar building, very little travel expense and they serve the most fantastic lunches. It should be a good place to test our growing play skills in the ring. We’re getting better together. Training is now much more about play and much less about cookies.

We haven't trialed for about two months and I am looking forward to seeing what has improved. Phoenix continues to be a wonderfully fun dog to train.

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Jamie and Phoenix were playing “Who’s the big dog?” last night. They were standing shoulder to shoulder, taking turns putting their head over the other’s withers and posturing, tails wagging madly and ears pinned back in Belgian delight. This went on for quite a while. I have no idea who won.

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams

Welcome to Exercise Finished, a blog about life with dogs, obedience and agility training and trialing, living in an old farmhouse, gardening, camping, cooking, storm spotting and enjoying every step of the journey.